Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) (47 page)

The Grid, she told the assembled listeners, was serviceable, made particularly so by some clever autonomous-function software and precision laser-com systems developed in Tanusha itself over the last few decades. But even now the systems were not equipped to the overlapping second- and third-level redundant sensitivity required to provide adequate protection from stealth raiders, who, given adequate advance knowledge of the Grid layout, could slip between the gaps. And further still, the passive sensory systems on the buoys overly relied upon doppler-effect measurements to monitor target velocities, which were notoriously unreliable in the face of phase-shifting attacking craft headed in-system carrying high-V from jump ... which did a number of things to Einsteinian physics of light that she didn't pretend to entirely understand, except to say that it could render elements of the doppler-effect misleading ... supra-light technologies could do that, especially on the later-model vessels in either the League or Federation fleets, something about wave effects and bending light from jump fields ... anyhow, she waved a hand dismissively, she was not a physicist, just an ex-grunt, and she was certain that Callayan engineers could give a better explanation of the systems that were needed for an upgrade than she could herself.

"You never had to deal with the technical complexities of such things yourself, Ms. Cassidy?" asked a Union Party rep.

"Not really, sir. The physics of space combat are an extraordinarily complex business that require all Fleet officers to spend four years and hundreds of hours of tape-teach to understand with any degree of practical certainty. As a special forces commander I had the luxury of allowing them to worry about the technicalities while I concerned myself with operations within the target environment. I'm more interested with the practical implications of what the equipment does than how."

"You were involved in space battles yourself?" Space battles. He managed to make it sound like a VR simulation game.

"Yes, sir. My operational environments varied from stations and other space-based facilities to ships and planet-bound targets. Planets are still something of a novelty to me, actually ... I'd guess something like seventy per cent of my life has been off-world, either on stations or being transported from place to place on ships."

"And how does it feel to be now living on a planet? Do you miss your old environment?"

"Not even a little bit."

Dead silence from the gallery behind. As if they dared not breathe, lest they missed some vital clue from her lips. A clue to what, she was not sure.

"That's hardly the response I'd expect from a veteran spacer."

"I'm not a veteran spacer, sir. I never had much to do with the hour-by-hour operations of spacecraft or stations. They were a platform from which I operated as a League soldier. On military facilities you didn't even get much of a view, viewports weren't a high priority in the designers' schematics." She shrugged faintly. "I welcome the space down here. And the sunlight. And the weather. Weather's wonderful. My best friend claims the greatest present threat to my life is lightning, she's always dragging me inside when a storm front comes through. Lightning's amazing."

"Please, Mr. Selvadurai," said Chairman Hassan, "allow Ms. Cassidy to finish her presentation. There will be plenty of time for questions later."

Then came her notes on local network security systems, which were difficult to translate for a non-expert audience, but she tried as best she could, detailing several of the more notoriously gaping holes, and outlining precisely why it had been so easy for FIA operatives to remain undetected on the system for as long as they had. Then emergency response systems ... several of the biggest problems were glaring, most notably the lack of training for serious emergencies. The debacle at the Derry riverside had demonstrated that clearly enough, and from the reluctant nods and wry expressions of several members along the benches, she knew she'd struck a chord.

And then there was CSA and SWAT itself ... there was the whole event on Park Street, with its masses of people to stand around, make notes and pour tea, yet somehow still a shortage of weapon-trained forces to clear neighbouring buildings, and a police force that didn't read CSA priority reports, which significantly reduced its ability to assist on CSA-run operations because it was largely out of the procedural loop on extra-irregular protocols. And of course there was SWAT procedure and training, inter-operational communication between the various CSA departments, the undersupply of airborne vehicles and certain unnecessary procurement delays that cost money, time and valuable manpower. And then of course there were recommendations ... not that she had any specifically planned, of course, as all things needed to be carefully planned in advance before suggestions could be made, but would the panel care for a general overview in advance?

Glazed looks from the congressors. She noted the time ... 12:30, she'd been talking for better than two hours now. No one had said how long she should speak for, she'd been told to demonstrate her thorough knowledge of relevant security systems in need of an upgrade, and she'd done that. But maybe she'd been a bit long on technical detail?

"Well ..." said Hassan, a little wearily, "... Ms. Cassidy ... perhaps, I feel, a list of recommendations would be more well suited to another time ... and perhaps a panel more expert on such matters than this one, for them to judge the merit of your proposals. But I ... thank you greatly for your insight here today ... it has given us all much food for thought, I'm sure everyone will agree."

Much shifting and coughing from the gallery. Passing lunchtime now, and no food allowed in the hearing room. Doubtless, it occurred to her, they'd been hoping for something considerably more sexy than what she'd just delivered. Good. As a public figure, she didn't want to be sexy. She wanted to be dull, bland, and sensibly utilitarian.

"I would convene the hearing for lunch," Hassan resumed, shifting back to a properly upright posture in his big leather chair, "but given the ... pressing nature of everyone's schedules at this time, I feel we should perhaps proceed immediately to questions, if there are no objections?"

"Ms. Cassidy," a Union Party rep said immediately from the left end of the long double row of benches, "you are technically under suspension at this moment, are you not?"

Silence descended once more upon the shifting, coughing gallery.

"Yes, ma'am." No one used that feminine anachronism in the League, nor in the CSA. But here in the grand houses of Parliament, it remained, she'd been informed, the required mode of address to powerful women.

"Why are you under suspension?" Seated on the very far left of the front bench. Sandy had to turn her head across to look at the woman directly. Distractingly, numerous of the gallery across that side began to lean forward, seeking a better view of her face.

"There was an incident." And thought to glance across at Rafasan. Rafasan nodded for her to continue. "The bombing on the Derry riverside two nights ago. I caught the bomber. The SIB thought I took unnecessary measures in doing so, and placed me under suspension on a technicality of my Callayan citizenship conditions, pending further review."

"You caught the bomber?" someone else asked. All twenty-six pairs of eyes across both rows of benches fixed unerringly upon her, with a mix of incredulity and surprise.

"Yes, ma'am."

"How?"

"I'm afraid," Rafasan intervened, leaning forward to her microphone, "that that information remains classified for now ..."

"Isn't it true," said the first Union Party woman, "that you shot and wounded a pair of SIB investigators in the process of this ... apprehension?" Dead silence. Sandy looked at Rafasan. The President's senior legal advisor gave a long, dark look in the direction of the Union Party woman. And then shrugged to Sandy, helplessly. A go-ahead.

"After they opened fire on me in an attempt to kill me for failing to stop when they said stop," Sandy replied. "I disobeyed because I was chasing the bomber, who was getting away. Upon coming under what I perceived to be an attack intended to be lethal, I responded by aiming to wound both of my pursuers, which I achieved, whereupon I resumed pursuit of the bomber and caught him."

Another, building wave of murmuring from the gallery. It had been on the news, she knew. Lots of eye witnesses. The news media hadn't guessed it'd been her in pursuit, however, and the CSA had done a good job of confusing the issue, claiming multiple agents in pursuit ... technically true, but not exactly clarifying. Thankfully most people had been too confused or frightened, and the media too wrapped up in sensationalism, to get very close to the truth ... although that too would have been just a matter of time, even for the Tanushan press. The Union woman stared hard at her for a moment. Evidently it didn't correlate with what she'd been told.

"Alita Bhattacharya," Rafasan leaned over to whisper in Sandy's ear, "Union Right." Sandy nodded, knowing what that meant. Religious groups and extreme, anti-League positioning. In this city, her ideological worst enemy. Doubtless the Senate Security Council had been talking to her.

"You can corroborate your story?" asked Bhattacharya, with extreme disbelief.

"It's on tape," Rafasan replied for her. "CSA protocols have recov ered traffic-control sensors which recorded the event. It correlates with Ms. Cassidy's recollection of events entirely."

"And why haven't you released this tape?" Bhattacharya replied suspiciously.

"Because the CSA and the Administration," Rafasan replied frostily, "are more concerned with performing the task circumstance has assigned to us, in accordance with the laws governing security restrictions and non-disclosure, than we are with scoring political points. Instead we are faced with a circumstance where one of this world's finest assets has been suspended for doing her job with excellence, while the SIB has been rewarded for doing its job extremely badly."

"Speaking personally, Ms. Rafasan," said a man sitting two seats along from Bhattacharya, "I find this incessant CSA bashing of the SIB and its agents extremely disturbing, particularly under these circumstances, where a couple of SIB agents have actually been shot, to apparently very little remorse from the person who shot them, or the CSA, or indeed the Neiland Administration in general."

"Sir," Rafasan said very coldly, nervous fingers clasping hard together on the table as she leaned forward, "if you care to examine my own personal record of statements in legal and academic arenas, you will find that my own attitude toward the SIB has generally been extremely positive for a great many years. As the President's senior legal advisor, you can trust that I have frequently supported the SIB's procedures on many things, often against the President's own feelings, or that of her various other advisors or ministers. I felt that the SIB possessed a degree of intellectual, academic sophistication worthy of the city that Tanusha, and the planet of Callay, was aiming to become.

"Recent events have come as something of a shock to me, I now most readily confess. They have revealed stark flaws in the SIB's operating procedure, most notably that its links to the Senate, and particularly the Senate Security Panel, have held its agenda hostage to narrow, often extremist and unrepresentative interests that in this case have sent it on the most disgraceful witch hunt that I have ever had the disgust to observe in all my years in the legal profession. The degree of extremist xenophobia ..."

"Ms. Rafasan ..." the chairman said loudly.

"... and the accompanying dangerously irrational attempts to interfere with legal government process," Rafasan continued, her accent lilting in a pronounced, angry rush, "have as far as I can see worked only to the detriment of law-abiding people across this planet

"Ms. Rafasan, if you please ..."

"... and to the broader security circumstance in general, much to the endangerment of everything that all law enforcement agencies upon this world should hold dear and sacred in the extreme."

"Thank you, Ms. Rafasan, I believe your point has been made ..."

"Ms. Rafasan," from the Union side, "I really can't believe what I'm hearing here ..."

Sandy glanced across at the senior legal advisor, who sat flushed and angry, her jaw set at a stubborn angle. She'd gotten to know Rafasan reasonably well over the last month of consultations on one legal matter or another, but she'd never seen her this worked up. Demure South Asian femininity indeed ... quite against the popular media images of delicate Indian beauty queens and assorted glamour princesses, she'd always thought Indian women among the most formidable people in Tanusha. Whenever they opened their mouths, that was.

"Please, please, people," cut in Chairman Hassan wearily before Rafasan could reply to the Union congressor's disbelief, "this hearing was not convened to discuss the strengths and failings of the Special Investigations Bureau, but rather to hear a presentation and ask questions of Ms. Cassidy here, who is doubtless extremely busy, as are we all..."

"Ms. Cassidy," spoke up another man from the Union side, "my name is Aramel Afed, I am a member of what you will know as the Union Left." A narrow-faced, dark-skinned man. North African, Sandy guessed. "I feel this might be an opportunity for us, the elected representatives of Callay, to actually get to know you, at least a little ... after all, we've heard so much about you, but until now have had no opportunity to attach a face, or indeed a personality, to this person of whom we've been hearing. So if you will allow me, I will begin by asking you to tell us all a little about yourself. What are your first memories, if I could begin at that early stage of your life?"

Sandy looked at Rafasan. Rafasan nodded encouragingly. Union Left. Neiland's support base, them and the Centrists ... most of the trouble came from the Right. And she suspected immediately that this man, this Congressor Afed, was most likely offering a planted question-a prearranged strategy worked out with members of the Neiland Administration to steer the hearing in a desirable direction. So. This, she realised, could take quite some time. She settled herself more comfortably into her seat, stretched her ankles more firmly out beneath the table, and began to tell them about her life.